There are few books more difficult to estimate than those in which M.
Huysman sets forth the story of a conversion generally supposed to bear
no very distant resemblance to his own. It would be easy to find
excellent reasons for a somewhat sweeping condemnation of his work, and
others as excellent for a most cordial approval; and, indeed, we find
critics more than usually at variance with one another in its regard. To
be judged justly, these books must be judged slowly. The source of
perplexity is to be found in the fact that the author, who has recently
passed from negation to Catholicism, carries with him the language, the
modes of thought, the taste and temper of the literary school of which
he was, and, in so many of his sympathies, is still a pupil, a school
which regards M. Zola as one of its leading lights. _En Route_, and its
sequels, portray in the colours of realism, in the language of
decadence, the conversion of a realist, nay, of a decadent, to mysticism
and faith. "The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are
the hands of Esau," and according as the critic centres his attention
too exclusively on one or the other, such will his judgment be.
That his works have commanded attention, and awakened keen interest
among members of the most varying and opposite schools of thought, is an
undeniable fact which at all events proves them to be worth careful
consideration.
The story of a soul's passage from darkness to light, of its wanderings,
vacillations, doubts, and temptations, must necessarily exercise a
strong fascination over all minds of a reflective cast: "The development
of a soul!" says Browning, "little else is worth study. I always thought
so; you, with many known and unknown to me, think so; others may one day
think so." [1] It is from this attraction of soul to soul that the
_Pilgrim's Progress_, together with many kindred works, derives its
spell; and indeed it is to this that all that is best and greatest in
art owes its power and immortal interest. Here, however, is one reason
why _The Cathedral_ [2] can never be so attractive as _En Route_,
ministering as it does but little to that deepest and most insatiable
curiosity concerning the soul and its sorrows. It portrays but little
perceptible movement, little in the way of violent revulsion and
conflict; the spiritual growth which it registers is mostly underground,
a strengthening and spreading of the roots. It deals with a period of
quiet healing and convalescence after a severe surgical operation; with
the "illuminative" stage of conversion--for there is scarcely any doubt
that the three volumes correspond to the "purgative," "illuminative,"
and "unitive" ways respectively.
Between pulling down and building up--both sensational processes,
especially the former--there intervenes a sober time of planning and
surveying, a quiet taking of information before entering on a new
campaign of action. When the affections have been painfully and
violently uprooted from earth, then first is the mind sufficiently free
from the bias of passion and base attachments to be instructed and
illuminated with profit in the things concerning its peace, and to be
prepared for the replanting of the affections in the soil of Heaven. The
arid desert, with its seemingly aimless wanderings, intervenes between
the exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the Land of Promise.
Dealing with this stage of the process of conversion, _The Cathedral_ is
comparatively monotonous and barren of spiritual incident. What removes
it still further from all chances of anything like popularity in this
country is the extent to which it is occupied with matters of purely
archæological and artistic interest, and more especially with the
mystical symbolism of the middle ages as chronicled in every detail of
the great Cathedral of Chartres. Little as may be the enthusiasm for
such lore in France, it is far less in England, where the people have
for three centuries been out of all touch with the Catholic Church, and
therefore with whatever modicum of mediævalism she still preserves as
part of her heritage from the past. Architecturally we appreciate our
dismantled cathedrals to some extent, but their symbolism is far less
understood than even the language and theology of the schools, while the
study of it meets as much sympathy as would the study of heraldry in a
modern democracy. Yet we may say that the bulk of the book consists of
an inventory of every symbolic detail in architecture, in sculpture, in
painting, in glass-colouring, to be found at Chartres; to which is added
a careful elaboration of the symbolism of beasts, flowers, colours,
perfumes, all very dreary reading for the uninitiated, and to be
criticized only by the expert.
Little scope as the plan of the book offers for any variety or display
of character, being mainly occupied with erudite monologue, put
sometimes into the mouth of Durtal, sometimes into that of the Abbé
Plomb, yet the personalities of these two, as well as those of Géversin,
Madame Bavoil, and Madame Mesurat, stand out very vividly, and make us
wish for that fuller acquaintance with them which a little more movement
and incident would have afforded.
But what will give most offence, and tend to alienate a certain amount
of intelligent and valuable sympathy, is the violence, and even the
coarseness, with which the author, or at least his hero, handles, not
only the opinions, but the very persons of those from whom he differs;
the intemperance of his invective, the narrow intolerance and absolute
self-confidence with which he sits in judgment on men and things.
As a matter of fact, this is rather a defect of style and expression
than of the inner sentiment. It is part and parcel of the realist temper
to blurt out the thought in all the clothing or nakedness with which it
first surges up into consciousness, before it has been submitted to the
censorship of reason; in a word, to do its thinking aloud, or on paper;
to give utterance not to the tempered and mature judgment--the last
result of refinement and correction, but to display the whole process
and working by which it was reached. As it is part of M. Zola's art to
linger lovingly over each little horror of some slaughter-house scene,
until the whole lives for us again as in a cinematograph, so M. Huysman,
engaged in the portrayal of a spiritual conflict, spares us no link in
the chain of causes by which the final result is produced; he bares the
brain, and exposes its workings with all the scientific calmness of the
vivisector.
Whether we like or dislike this realism, we must allow for it in forming
our judgment on these volumes, nor must we treat as final and approved
opinions what are often the mere spontaneous suggestions and first
thoughts of the mind, the oscillations through which it settles down to
rest. Over and over again we shall find that Durtal subsequently raises
the very objection to his own view that was on our lips at the first
reading of it.
But even making such allowance, it none the less remains a matter of
regret that one who, with perhaps some justice, considers that in point
of art-appreciation "the Catholic public is still a hundred feet beneath
the profane public," and chides them for "their incurable lack of
artistic sense," who speaks of "the frightful appetite for the hideous
which disgraces the Church of our day," who himself in many ways, in a
hundred passages of sublime thought, of tender piety, of lyrical poesy,
has proved beyond all cavil his delicacy of sentiment, his exquisite
niceness in matters of taste, his reverence for what is chaste and
beautiful, should at times be so deplorably unfaithful to his better
instincts, so forgetful of the close and inseparable alliance between
restraint and elegance. What can be weaker or uglier, more unbecoming an
artist, more becoming a fish-wife, than his description of Lochner's
picture of the Virgin: "The neck of a heifer, and flesh like cream or
hasty-pudding, that quivers when it is touched;" or of the picture of
St. Ursula's companions, by the same hand: "Their squab noses poking out
of bladders of lard that did duty for their faces;" not to speak of the
characterization of a "Sacred Heart" too revolting to reproduce? Surely
when, after having reviled M. Tissot almost personally, he describes his
works as painted with "muck, wine-sauce, and mud," it is difficult not
to answer with a _tu quoque_ as far as this word-painting is
concerned--difficult not to see here some morbid and "frightful appetite
for the hideous" struggling with the healthy appetite for better things.
However lame and ridiculous an artist's utterance may be, yet there is a
certain reverence sometimes due to what he is endeavouring to say, and
even to his desire to say it. We do not think it very witty or tasteful
or charitable to laugh at a man because he stammers; still less do we
overwhelm him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder at most
presentments of the Sacred Heart, but even apart from all consideration
for the artist, a certain reverence for the idea there travestied and
unintentionally dishonoured, should forbid our insulting what after all
is so nearly related to that idea, and in the eyes of the untaught very
closely identified with it.
But an occasional trespass of this kind, however offensive, is not
enough to detract materially from the value of so much that is
meritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics
(less observable in _The Cathedral_ than in _En Route_), which makes the
book undesirable for many classes of readers, prevent its due
appreciation on the part of others--unless we are going to put the
Sacred Scriptures on the Index. In this vexed question, M. Huysman takes
what seems the more robust and healthy view, but he appears to be quite
unaware how many difficulties it involves; and consequently lashes out
with his usual intemperance against the contrary tradition, which is
undeniably well represented. It is not as though the advocates of the
"flight" policy in regard to temptations against this particular virtue
were ignorant of the general principle which undoubtedly holds as
regards all other temptations, and bids us turn and face the dog that
barks at our heels. This counsel is as old as the world. But from the
earliest time a special exception has been made to it in the one case of
impurity by those who have professedly spoken in the light of experience
rather than of _à priori_ inference. Both views are encompassed with
difficulty, nor does any compromise suggest itself.
What seems to us one of the most interesting points raised by the story
of Durtal's spiritual re-birth and development is the precise relation
between the Catholic religion and fine art.
God has not chosen to save men by logic; so neither has He chosen to
save them by fine art. If the "election" of the Apostolic Church counted
but few scribes or philosophers among its members--and those few
admitted almost on sufferance--we may also be sure that the followers of
the Galilean fishermen were not as a body distinguished by a fastidious
criticism in matters of fine art. In after ages, when the Church
asserted herself and moulded a civilization more or less in accordance
with her own exigencies and ideals, it is notorious how she made
philosophy and art her own, and subjected them to her service; but
whether in so doing she in any way departed from the principles of
Apostolic times is what interests us to understand.
There is certainty no more unpardonable fallacy than that of "Bible
Christians," who assume that the Church in the Apostolic age had reached
its full expansion and expression, and therefore in respect of polity,
liturgy, doctrinal statement and discipline must be regarded as an
immutable type for all ages and countries; from which all departure is
necessarily a corruption. They take the flexible sapling and compare it
with aged knotty oak, and shake their heads over the lamentable
unlikeness: "That this should be the natural outgrowth of that! _O
tempora, O mores!_"
Like every organism, in its beginning, the Church was soft-bodied and
formless in all these respects; but she had within her the power of
fashioning to herself a framework suited to her needs, of assuming
consistency and definite shape in due time. The old bottles would not
serve to hold the new wine, but this did not mean that new bottles were
not to be sought. Because the philosophy, the art, the polity of the age
in which she was born were already enlisted in the service of other
ideas and inextricably associated with error in the minds of men, it was
needful for her at first to dissociate herself absolutely from the use
of instruments otherwise adaptable in many respects to her own ends, and
to wait till she was strong enough to alter them and use them without
fear of scandal and misinterpretation.
The Church is many-tongued; but though she can deliver her message in
any language, yet she is not for that reason independent of language in
general. There is no way to the human ear and heart but through language
of some kind or another. It is not her mission to teach languages, but
to use the languages she finds to hand for the expression of the truths,
the facts, the concrete realities to which her dogmas point. This does
not deny that one language may not be more flexible, more graphic than
any other, more apt to express the facts of Heaven as well as those of
earth. It only denies that any one is absolutely and exclusively the
best.
It is no very great violence to include rhetoric, music, painting,
sculpture, architecture, ritual, and every form of decorative art in the
category of language and to bring them under the same general laws,
since even philosophy may to a large extent be treated in the same way.
Christ has not commissioned His Church to teach science or philosophy,
nor has He given her an infallible _magisterium_ in matters of fine art.
She uses what she finds in use and endeavours with the imperfect
implements, the limited colours, the coarse materials at her disposal to
make the picture of Christ and His truth stand out as faithful to
reality as possible; and--to press the illustration somewhat crudely--as
what is rightly black, in a study in black and white, may be quite
wrongly black in polychrome; so what the Church approves according to
one convention, she may condemn according to another. May we not apply
to her what Durtal says of our Lady: "She seems to have come under the
semblance of every race known to the middle ages; black as an African,
tawny as a Mongolian;"--"she unveils herself to the children of the soil
... these beings with their rough-hewn feelings, their shapeless ideas,
hardly able to express themselves"? The more we study the visions and
apparitions with which saints have been favoured and the revelations
which have been vouchsafed to them, the more evident is it that they are
spoken to in their own language, appealed to through their own imagery.
Indeed, were it not so, how could they understand? Our Lady is the
all-beautiful for every nation, but the type of human beauty is not the
same for all. The Madonna of the Ethiopian might be a rather terrifying
apparition in France or Italy.
There is no art too rough or primitive, or even too vulgar, for the
Church to disdain, if it offers the only medium of conveying her truth
to certain minds. Though custom has made it classical, her liturgical
language, whether Latin or Greek, when first assumed, was that of the
mob--about as elegant as we consider the dialects of the peasantry. She
did not use plain-chaunt for any of those reasons which antiquarians and
ecclesiologists urge in its favour now-a-days, but because it was the
only music then in vogue. Even to-day the breeziest popular melodies in
the East are suggestive of the _Oratio Jeremiæ_. Her vestments (even
Gothic vestments!) were once simply the "Sunday best" of the fashion of
those days. If to-day these things have a different value and
excellence, it is in obedience to the law by which what is "romantic" in
one age becomes "classical" in the next, or what is at first useful and
commonplace becomes at last ceremonial and symbolic; and by which the
common tongue of the vulgar comes by mere process of time to be archaic
and stately. To "create" ancient custom and ritual on a sudden, or to
resuscitate abruptly that which has lapsed into oblivion, is, to say the
least, a very Western idea, akin to the pedantry of trying to restore
Chaucer's English to common use. _Nascitur non fit_, is the law in all
such matters.
While we assert the Church's independence of any one in particular of
these means of self-expression, her indifference to style and mode of
speech so long as substantial fidelity is secured, we must not deny that
some of them are, of their own nature, more apt to her purpose than
others and allow a fuller revelation of her sense; and that in
proportion as her influence is strong in the world she tends to modify
human thought and language, to leaven philosophy and fine art, so as to
form by a process of selection and refusal, and in some measure even to
create, an ever richer and more flexible medium of utterance.
In this sense we can with some caution speak of "Catholic art" in music,
architecture, and painting, so far, that is, as we can determine the
extent and nature of the Church's action, and therefore the tendency of
her influence in the way of stimulus and restraint with regard to
subject and treatment. We do not unjustly discern an author's style as a
personal element distinct from the language and phraseology of which no
item is his own. The manner in which he uses that language, his
selections and refusals make, in union with the borrowed elements, a
tongue that may be called his, in an exclusive sense. The Church, too,
has her style, which, though difficult to discern amid her use of a
Pentecostal variety of languages, is no doubt always the same--at least
in tendency.
Salvation-Army worship is certainly not of the Church's style, but I do
not think, were there no absolute irreverence and scandal to be feared,
that she would hesitate to use such a language, were it the only one
understood by such a people. St. Francis Xavier's "catechisms" were
often hardly less uncouth. Still, her whole tendency would be towards
restraint, order, and exterior reverence. Again, the stoical coldness
and formalism of a liturgical worship, centered round no soul-stirring
mystery of Divine love where there can be feeling so strong as to need
the restraint of liturgy and ritual, has still less of the Church's
style about it. For she is human, not merely in her reason and
self-restraint, but in the fulness of her passion and enthusiasm; and
restraint is only beautiful and needful where there is something to
restrain.
We are now in a position to consider the surface objection that will
present itself to many a reader concerning Durtal's conversion. "He has
been converted," it will be said, "by a fallacy. He has identified the
Catholic religion with the cause of plain-chaunt and Gothic
architecture, and of all that is, or that he considers to be, best in
art. He has laid hold not of Catholicism, but of its merest accessories,
which it might shake off any day, and him along with them. Indeed, he
scarcely makes any pretence at being in sympathy with the Catholicism of
to-day, which he regards as almost entirely philistine and degenerate,
if we except La Trappe and Solesmes and a few other corners where the
old observances linger on. 'It was so ugly, so painfully adorned with
images, that only by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in
Notre Dame de la Brèche.' Yes, but what sort of convert is this who is
so insensible to substantials, so morbidly sensitive about mere
accidentals? We come to the Church for the true faith and the
sacraments, not for 'sensations.' In fine, Durtal has not observed the
route prescribed by the apologetics for reaching the door of the
sheep-fold, but has climbed over in his own way, like a thief and a
robber; he has not (as a recent critic says of him) _tombé entre les
bras maternals de l'Eglise selon toutes les régles_."
Without for a moment denying one of the legitimate claims of scientific
apologetic, we may at once dismiss the idea that it pretends to
represent a process through which the mind of the convert to
Christianity either does or ought necessarily to pass. Its sole purport
is to show that if it is not always possible to synthetize Christianity
with the current philosophy, science, and history of the day, at least
no want of harmony can be positively demonstrated. As secular beliefs
and opinions are continually shifting, so too apologetic needs continual
adjustment: and as that of a century back is useless to us now, so will
ours be in many ways inadequate a century hence. It is fitting for the
Church at large that she should in each age and country have a suitable
apologetic, taking cognizance of the latest developments of profane
knowledge. It is needful for her public honour in the eyes of the world
that she should not seem to be in contradiction with truth, but that
either the apparent truth should be proved questionable, or else that
her own teaching should be shown to be compatible with it. But in no
sense is such apologetic always a necessity for the individual, still
less a safe or adequate basis for a solid conversion, which in that case
would be shaken by every new difficulty unthought of before.
Our subjective faith in the Church must be like the faith of the
disciples of Christ, an entirely personal relation; an act of implicit
trust based on no lean argument or chain of reasoning, but on the
irresistible spell, the overmastering impression created upon us by a
character manifested in life, action, speech, even in manner; as
impossible to state in its entirety and as impossible to doubt as are
our reasons for loving or loathing, for trusting or fearing.
No doubt we hear of men of intellect and learning "reading" or
"reasoning" themselves into the Church; but others as able have read and
reasoned along the same line, and yet have not come; for in truth,
reason at the most can set free a force of attraction created by motives
other than reason.
What this attraction is in each case is impossible to specify
accurately--"Ask me and I know not," one might say, "do not ask me and I
know." Each soul is hooked with its own bait, called by its own name,
drawn in its own way; and as the attractiveness of Christ is virtually
infinite in its multiformity, so is that of His Church, nor is there a
more unpardonable narrowness than that of insisting that others shall be
drawn in the same way as we ourselves, or not at all.
Let it also be noticed that a very prolonged and minute intimacy is not
always necessary in order that we should feel the spell of personality.
Much depends on our own gifts of sympathy, insight and apprehension, on
the simplicity and strength of the personality in question, on the
nature of the incidents by which it is disclosed to us. We know one man
in a moment, another only after years of intimacy, while others in
regard to the same individuals might experience the converse. We must
not then suppose that because in one case the impression is the result
of slowly-accumulated observations, and in another the work of an
instant, it is less trustworthy in the latter instance than in the
former. It may be, or it may not be. St. Augustine needed years to feel
the spell that one word, nay, one glance from Christ cast upon St.
Peter. Nor again is it always in some striking and notable crisis that a
character reveals itself abruptly, but often in the merest nuance--a
manner, an intonation, something quite unintentional, unpremeditated. We
know well, if we know ourselves at all, how irresistible is the
impression created on us at times by such trifles, and yet how more than
reasonable it often is.
Who shall say, then, that to an eye and heart attuned to quick sympathy,
any indication is too small to betray the inward spirit and character of
the Catholic Church, or to magnetize a soul and render it restless,
until it obeys her attraction and rests in union with her?
To a sensitively artistic temperament such as Durtal's, the indications
of the Church's "style," revealed in her influence upon art, in her
creations, in her selections and refusals, would be eloquent of her
whole character and ethos; it would be to him what the very tone of
Christ's voice was to the Baptist, or what His glance was to Peter, or
what His silence was to Pilate. We have known too many instances of
deep-seated and entire conviction, based on seemingly as little or less,
to wish for one moment to indulge in any foolish rationalizing or to
question the possibility or probability of God's drawing souls to
Himself by such methods.
We must, however, remember that it is not merely by the Church's
mediæval art that Durtal is attracted, but still more by that mysticism
which created it, and by which it was served and fostered in return.
Mysticism must necessarily excite the sympathy of one who is in devout
pursuit of the highest and most spiritual forms of æsthetic beauty.
Whatever be the long-sought and never-to-be-forgotten definition of the
Beautiful, of this much at least a mere process of induction will assure
us, that men count things beautiful in the measure that they are
released from the grossness, formlessness, and heaviness of matter, and
by their delicacy, shapeliness, and unearthliness, betray the influence
of that principle which is everywhere in conflict with matter and is
called spirit. Man at his best is most at home, where at his worst he is
least at home, namely, in the world of those super-realities which are
touched and felt by the soul, but refuse to be pictured or spoken in the
language of the five senses. A hard, "common-sense," labour-and-wages
religion, such as is consonant with the utilitarianism of a commercial
civilization, could never appeal to a temperament like Durtal's.
Doubtless Catholic Christianity admits of being apprehended under the
narrower and grosser aspect, which however inadequate and unworthy, is
not absolutely false. The Jews were suffered to believe not merely that
God rewards the just and punishes the wicked--which is eternally
true--but that He does so in this life, which is true only with
qualification; and that He rewards them with temporal prosperity and
adversity--which is hardly true at all. Catholic truth, in itself the
same, can only be received according to the recipient's capacity and
sensitiveness. What one age or country is alive to, another may be dead
to; nor can we pretend that here all is progress and no regress, unless
we are prepared to say that in no respect have we anything to learn from
the past. The Ignatian meditation on the "Kingdom of Christ" evoked
heroic response in an age impregnated with the sentiments of chivalry,
but to-day it needs to be adapted to a great extent, and some have
vainly hoped to gather grapes from a thistle by substituting a parable
drawn from some soul-stirring commercial enterprise--a colossal
speculation in cheese.
Whatever signs there may be of a reaction, yet the whole temper and
spirit of our age is unfavourable to that mysticism which is the very
choicest flower of the Catholic religion. The blame is not with the
seed, but with the soil. Even where least of all we should look for such
indifference, among those who have built up the sepulchres and shrines
of the great masters of mysticism, we sometimes observe a profound
distrust for what is esteemed an unpractical, unhealthy kind of piety,
while every preference is given to what is definite and tangible in the
way of little methods and industries, multitudinous practices, lucrative
prayers, in a word, to what a critic already quoted describes as _les
petitesses des cerveaux étroits et les anguleuses routines_. [3]
It is one of the narrownesses of Durtal himself to ascribe all this to
the wilful perversity of a person or persons unknown, and not to see in
it the inevitable result of the vulgarizing tendency of modern life upon
the masses. Things being as they are, surely it is better that the
Church should do the little she can than do nothing at all. The
"meditative mind" is incompatible with the rush and worry of a busy
life, especially where educational methods substitute information for
reflection, and so kill the habit, and eventually the faculty, of
thought in so many cases. But if the higher prayer is impossible, the
lower is possible and profitable. Again, if the liturgical sense has in
a great measure become extinct among the faithful owing to the
unavoidable disuse of the public celebration of the Church's worship, it
is well that they should be allowed devotions accommodated to their
limited capacity. As the Church would never dream of expecting a keen
sympathy with her higher dogmas, her mystical piety, her artistic
symbolism, her transcendent liturgy, on the part of a newly-converted
tribe of savages, so neither is she impatient with the civilized
Philistine, but is willing to speak to him in a language all his own,
hoping indeed to tune his tongue one day to something less uncouth. None
can sympathize more cordially than the writer does with Durtal in his
horror of unauthorized devotions, of insufferable vernacular litanies,
of nerveless and sickly hymns, of interminable "acts of consecration"
void of a single definite idea, more especially when these things are
brought into the very sanctuary itself, with stole and cope and every
apparent endeavour to fix the responsibility on the Universal Church.
But if the Church is willing to go in rags to save those who are in
rags, she is only using her invariable economy. We know well the sort of
robe that befits her dignity, and no doubt it is this contrast that
makes the trial of her present humiliation more difficult for us to
bear.
We do not for a moment allow that the difference between bad taste and
good is merely relative, or that a language or art which is externally
vulgar can ever be the adequate and appropriate expression of the
Catholic religion, whose tendency when unimpeded is ever to refine and
purify. But it is perhaps another narrowness to suppose that a reform
can only be effected by a return to the past, to mediæval symbolism and
music and architecture. No effort of the kind has ever met with more
than seeming success. What is consciously imitated from the past is not
the same as that natural growth which it imitates, and which was as
congenial to those days as it is uncongenial to ours. It is all the
difference between the Mass ceremonial in a Ritualist church and in a
Catholic church--the historical sense is violated in one case and
satisfied in the other.
What is once really dead can never revive in the same form--at best we
get a cast from the dead face. No doubt the old music and the old
symbolism always will have a beauty of antiquity that can never belong
to the new; but it was not this beauty--the beauty of death, of autumn
leaves, that made them once popular, but the beauty of fresh green life
and flexibility. The effort to make antiquity popular is almost a
contradiction in terms. What we may hope for at most is an improvement
in the æsthetic tastes of the Catholic public which comes from freer and
healthier surroundings, from saner ideas and wider opportunities of
education and liberal culture. When they begin to speak a richer
language, the Church will take that language and find in it a fuller
expression of her mind than she can in the present _patois_; she will be
able again to say to them in other words, as yet unknown, what she said
to the middle ages in Gregorian chaunt and Gothic cathedral. She, who in
virtue of her Pentecostal gift of tongues, speaks in sundry times and
divers manners, may in due season find words as eloquent of her heart
and mind as those which she spoke to Durtal in the aisles of Chartres
and in the cadences of Solesmes.
_July_, 1898.
Footnotes:
[Footnote 1: Introduction to Sordello.]
[Footnote 2: _The Cathedral_. By M.T.K. Huysman. Translated by
Clare Bell.]
[Footnote 3: R. P. Pacher, S.J., _De Dante à Verlaine_.]